Stella Chiweshe

'Stella Chiweshe was born on the (8th of July 1964) in Mujumi Village, Mhondoro, about 45 miles from the capital city, Harare . She is married to a German national where she now permanently resides. Her daughter Virgina Mukwesha is also a musician having been taught to play mbira since she was 12. Stella Rambisai Chiweshe is a popular Zimbabwean mbira player and arguably the first pioneer of Chimurenga music. She made history by becoming the first successful female artist to venture into the male-dominated music industry. She is internationally known for her singing and playing of the mbira dzavadzimu, a traditional instrument of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. She is one of the few female players of the instrument, which she learned to play from 1966 to 1969 when even fewer females played the instrument."

StellaChiweshe2012

Quotes

• "All the experience that I get through my travels with music, I would like to share it with the youth, with school children and with older people, to give back what I have experienced in my lifetime."

• "You know that since we were colonised for 100 years, for all that time our traditional music was oppressed, people were not free to sing their traditional songs."

• "Once I was playing and I started to see the mbira as the head of a lion, the keys were the teeth of the lion. There was no way to escape, so the only thing I could do was to break the teeth of the lion. It happened for a long time that I was fighting with the lion, breaking its teeth. Afterwards, people were looking at me and I was wondering what was happening when I was breaking the teeth!"

• "But if it is something that is in the blood and the veins of the people, it is not possible to completely remove it, we did not stop playing mbira in the communal lands, we didn’t."
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  • [3]

• "Everything happens for a reason, but I believe Zimbabwe will be O.K..', When listening to a voice so wise and gentle, it is hard not to believe."
  • [4]
• If you are listening to the mbira, let go of any thinking
• Let your mind to do its own thing
  • Stella Chiweshe obituary,30 January 2023
• It gave me courage to ignore everyone. I ignored men, I ignored women, I ignored the government, I ignored the church
• That’s how I started to play
  • Obituary: Stella Chiweshe (1946-2023),23 January 2023
• It’s not going to be a place for a honeymoon. It’s a place for individuals to come and be healed by the mbira. Your mind can become very congested. Mbira is dismantling, dismantling, dismantling, to bring peace
• Mbira without hosho is for sitting and listening to something important. And the one with hosho is for arousing people to dance
• For me, it is not a long time ago. I started by playing solo but I said, ‘O.K., let me try this. Other people are doing that. Let me try this.’ We just rehearsed for two-and-a-half hours and then we were on the road. They were surprised, Colin and Nigel. They were surprised at how fast they managed to play that, but for me I was not surprised because from a long time ago, I was seeing them in my visions, playing with them. And then finally we met
• You know, a song does not stay at one place. Now for me, this song is calling for the unification of voices. That is where ‘Chachimurenga’ is now. Voices, singing together. People talk a lot. They never come together to sing. Sing, sing. Just sing, sing
• It is very easy to offend somebody if you don’t know their manners
• All cultures who would like to explain themselves can come. Then we will understand each other. There is no time to talk about politics, the weather. Don’t talk about anything. When people come there, they should stop talking. When we stop talking, we are very much wiser. We will understand each other more when we keep quiet
• We are mixing people from many different lands and cultures. When we come from silence, I can explain how it is in my culture, so we can understand each other. I’m not the leader. The leader is mbira
• I only have stones around me. What I did there, I built four wooden cabins. There is one for the builders, one for me, one for my visitor and one for utensils for brewing beer
  • Stella Chiweshe to Build Culture Center in Zimbabwe, 12 December 2020

Quotes about her

• Stella Rambisai Chiweshe learned when it was forbidden for a woman to play the instrument and also when the colonial regime had banned any cultural activities and traditional practices.
  • [5]

• She became a member of the National Dance Company of Zimbabwe as Mbira soloist, actress and dancer. Performed in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. India, China and Korea. She earned great success in a film where she played the role of Ambuya Nehanda - the national heroine of Zimbabwe, who was killed in 1896 by the colonial government. Solo tours in Germany, Great Britain, Italy, India, China, Korea, and concerts with her late brother Elfigio Chiweshe1985Tour throughout Europe with her daughter Virginia Mukwesha.

• Played in forbidden spiritual ceremonies under the danger of imprisonment through the colonial government before independence 1974, first recordings of her compositions with Teal Record Company of which her first single Kasahwa went gold.

• When Chiweshe was first called to the mbira, Zimbabwe was still Rhodesia, and neither the racist settler-colonialist government nor the Christian church would allow such dangerous tools in the hands of the people. The mbira, along with all traditional elements of Shona culture, was banned."

[6]

• quite a radical record for 1987, and took her to a different place. It was a jump forward for Stella, showing what might be achieved beyond Zimbabwe
• she took her role very seriously. A lot of things came to her in dreams or from the spirit world
• Chiweshe was a totem she adopted as a stage name
  • Stella Chiweshe obituary,30 January 2023